Sw ich?

Ich is one of thoes things that can lay dorment in your tank for ages with no signs of infection anywhere and as soon as some paremiters slip ie. temp, PH, Amonnia and the likes, it can raise ist ugly head.
Once its in a system I think its their for the life and only held at bay by healthy fish and stable conditions.
treatments may work, but in mt expire their is no real reef safe cure, however as stated above garlic is a good medicament in increasing the imune system of your fish.

 

Thanks guys, the clown looks a bit better today but the sixline definatly has more white specs on him than yesterday, I am concerned with leaving the carbon out of my filters for a week or two because I run a skimmerless system so my only filtration is the LR right now. any thoughts?

 

When it comes to battling ich, its one of those things where you have to do certain things and if you dont, you'll never really get rid of it.

There was a study done last year by the University of Miami about Ich. They found out that ich also infects invertibrates such as shrimp and crabs. It gets inbetween the segments of their exoskeleton. Its not as lethal to inverts as it is to fish. This also expllains the theory that you'll never get rid of it because people just remove the fish and treat them, and not get rid of their inverts.

You need a QT, and figure out EXACTLY what you are battling. Different parasites respond to different treatments. If it is Marine velvet aka dinoflagelettes, then you need some like Paraguard for the QT and do Furan2 dips. If its Ich, then you need to move the fish to a QT and dispose of all inverts. Both require leaving the tanks fishless for 3 months, because the life cycle of both is around 21 days on average depending on temp of the tank. Warming water temp speeds up the life cycle.

 

Thanks geek, Can I use a powerhead from my display in the QT and then return it after treatment to the Display tank after a good washing? Also is there a difinitive way to tell the difference besides simply that velvet it smaller white specs than ich? I have a 20g that I could use for a QT sitting emply in my garage, I just hate to spend $20 powerhead, $20 cheapo filter, $15 meds, and probably $20 worth of water by the time I do water changes for a month on th QT, to possibly save $50 in fish. If I could use one of my emp280's and a powerhead from the display and put them back when I am done that may change things a bit. Then I just buy meds and mix up some water and I'm good to go.

 

OK, I seached around and set up a QT as best I could. I am currently treating with combo drug of Formaldehyde and malachite green. (Rid Ich by Kordon). If my corals in my display live through the trauma of me chasing those fish all over the tank and back to catch them I can say that I will NEVER, EVER, EVER add another fish to my tank without quarantine first. If there are any newer than me reading this. Spend the 30 bucks and set up a QT! Some people just have to learn the hard way!

 

Sixline is down and out. Only surviving fish is tomato clown, He is quarantined for about a week now, and still eating well. I hate waiting!

 

I hate to hear about the losses like that. Ive lost 2 sixlines, both met the same fate sorta... I had just set up a new QT for my fish, had a powerhead in the bottom with the guard off (the one I used for mixing salt) and the sixline decided to hide in there. Needless to say, I pulled out half a sixline out of it. Traumatized my powder brown trying to catch it that it wedges itself underneath some rocks and scratched it up pretty good, and it lived for about 4 hours after that. Wound up losing all of my fish because I tried everything under the sun to keep from having to break the tank down to remove the fish.

 

It just sux, watchin helplessly. I am doing all I can with the QT, meds, increased temp from 78 to around 82 over last 48 hrs. Now the only fish left is the one I really didn't like that much to begin with. Tomato clown I bought for a cheap, hardy cycling fish. Go figure.

 

high temps=less o2 in the tank. Only need the temp up for a couple days in the QT. Display tank can be left at 82 until your done. That hardy fish will draw blood when it gets bigger...

 

Thanks geek, I will let it back down to 78 tomorrow. And keep the Display elevated for a while. Thats what I have heard about the tomato clowns, since I lost my tang and sixline I would almost just rather start with a fresh stock list.